Finality
by Alioseven
Summary: Mycroft and Sherlock on the day of their father's burial. - hits at autistic!Sherlock but only if you squint.


The wind picked up and sent undulating strands of mahogany hair across Sherlock's wrinkled forehead and into his eyes. His shoulders rose higher, stiffening his back against the cold and pushing the turned up collar and knotted, blue scarf further under his chin. His arms were locked, hands dug into the pockets of his trademark coat. His shoes, polished and pristine, scuffed the stones beneath his feet as he walked, tailored trousers millimetres from the floor, just saving the hem from being destroyed underfoot. The sky was grieving, heavy with thick, grey clouds that threatened to sob their distraught tears upon those below. Sherlock didn't care; he didn't care about much anymore. He stopped, feet coming to rest as though stood to salute, and turned to his right.

"You're not obligated to do this." Mycroft's voice, sobering though it was, offered nothing to mend his younger brother's frayed edges.

"Of course I'm obligated," Sherlock licked his chapped bottom lip. "He was our father."

Mycroft's brow, neatly manicured, twitched slightly. "Blood isn't always thicker than water," he stated. "Detective Inspector Lestrade, for example, has been more of a father figure for you than he ever was, _for both of us_."

"I thought I was the one who lacked social skills?" Sherlock cut across Mycroft's attempts. "As his sons, we should be at his funeral. We're already in the graveyard, Mycroft; there are already other mourners here. It would be foolish to assume we could turn away now. It would be foolish to assume _I would_."

Mycroft's cheek twitched in a ghost of a smile, "One last 'fuck you' to the old man?" he asked, careful of his tone but scrutinising with his gaze on his younger counterpart.

Sherlock granted Mycroft the eye-contact he wanted, "Precisely."

Mycroft adjusted the sleeves on his long coat, though they didn't warrant any adjustment, and glanced around the deathly silent cemetery. "Sebastian didn't feel you needed accompaniment today?"

"He's working." Sherlock said, quickly.

Mycroft's cheek lifted again; he knew his brother far too well. "You haven't told him; he has no idea where you are or even that he's dead." He cast his eyes on Sherlock who glanced everywhere but at him until he couldn't avoid it any longer and finally locked matching eyes together. "Dear me, Sherlock; that's not very trustworthy now is it?"

"And Seb knowing of his passing would achieve what?" Sherlock snapped, turning his head against the wind as a vicious gust rattled in the Autumn-sick trees, rustling loudly, lifting and rearranging Sherlock's far-too-long curls. "Him being here would achieve what?"

Mycroft tongued his cheek and offered a sickening smile. "Absolutely nothing, dear brother." He appeased. "Fix yourself." He warned, nodding over Sherlock's shoulder.

Turning, the younger Holmes' eyes fell upon the hearse and following funeral cars, the bull bearing walking before to guide the body of their father into the cemetery, heading closer to the small church nestled in the middle of the expanse of graves and Holy statues, littered with autumn leaves and dying trees. It seemed apt.

The cars housed their father, Joseph's, _other_ family. Upon divorcing their mother when Sherlock was younger, Joseph had gone on to remarry and have two more children, both boys, both unaware of Sherlock and Mycroft though they were only too acutely aware of them. Joseph Jr. and Francis – after his mother's father – didn't look like Mycroft and Sherlock in the slightest, taking on more of their mother's features than their fathers and Sherlock found he was able to write them off as family at all with this fact in mind. Sentimentality would get them – him – nowhere. What use was it in wanting to know them? He had Mycroft, for all his worth, and barely needed him; why should he want to complicate it by adding more to the melting pot of strange? Fourteen and twelve, they were too young to be without a father and yet even that didn't strike Sherlock, despite him having watched his father walk away when he was younger still.

"Sherlock," Mycroft's hand on his arm grounded Sherlock with a thud before he even realised his mind had wondered. The cars had driven past, mourners followed and Sherlock had remained routed to the spot, eyes ahead until Mycroft's bony fingers had touched against him. "Sherlock." He repeated.

"What?" Viciousness seeped from his tone out of habit more than intent.

Mycroft ignored it anyhow and nodded toward the opened doors of the church – painted brown but stripped and weather-beaten – raising his brows for emphasis. "We need to follow into the church for the service." There was carefulness to Mycroft's tone that Sherlock rarely heard anymore. "You don't have to." He added, "We can still go."

Sherlock shook his head wordlessly, eyes so wide he looked, to his brother, impossibly young and fragile. Mycroft gave a single nod and stepped forward, leading to the church, the low heel on his brogue scuffing the path beneath him. It took Sherlock three beats before he could follow, his mind swimming, his body conflicting, his heart beating in a rhythm he wasn't comfortable or familiar with. Despite his twenty-two years, he reached out and wound his fingers into the unfastened tie on the back of Mycroft's coat.

Mycroft felt the tug but said nothing, allowing his brother his comfort. Sherlock's emotions had always been odd ones to understand, his ways of thinking never easy to decipher, and Mycroft allowed him the fits and starts of affection he sought out occasionally – very occasionally – in the hopes he might learn to read his brother better from them.

The church was small, smelled of school hallways and damp wood, and filled quickly which astonished Mycroft somewhat; people, it seemed, loved his father. He asked himself why and couldn't fathom the answer. They stood in silence, backs perfectly straight, at the back of the boxy church hall. The autumnal sun shone, but only just, through the stained glass windows, putting red halos on the cheeks of the congregation. Mycroft found it mildly amusing but he didn't know why. Sherlock's hand worked its way from the belt of Mycroft's coat, around to his sleeve where it gripped in a pincer hold against the cuff. Mycroft pushed his hand from inside, wrapping his fingers of Sherlock's wordlessly and then allowed their fingers to dance until they were almost holding hands, but not quite.

Words were spoken by an Irish vicar with a deep voice that purred with silky smoothness throughout the church, echoing and strengthening. There were prayers, a hymn and a eulogy delivered by the woman who, to all intents and purposes, was the boy's step-mother, Connie. She was slim, not unlike their mother and incredibly pretty – another thing their mother possessed. Her voice was soft and singsong but sad as she talked of 'Joey' and his love for his sons, Joe and Frank. Mycroft thought he didn't know who this man was; this man who had time for his children, who laughed and joked and teased and cared.

Mycroft knew Joseph Holmes as a man who shouted, a man who drank and smoked and swore and raged. Sherlock knew Joseph Holmes as a man who never understood, a man who failed to love and failed to care – a man who raised a fist before his heart. Sherlock thought, young as he was when his father had left, that they weren't describing the man accurately at all. His hand gripped tighter around Mycroft's and the pressure was reciprocated by Mycroft's tightly-clasped fingers. He was buried quickly, in a plot in the corner of the graveyard, with his wife and sons at the graveside, tossing in a rose as the final prayers were muttered and the congregation dissipated.

Side by side, no longer joined by fingers, Sherlock and Mycroft stood back from the hoard as it broke away, stragglers eventually leaving. The open grave would be filled that day by the attendants of the cemetery. But for now, it lay bare and open, exposed like a wound, and Sherlock wished it would hurt like one but, instead, it felt numb like aesthetic and he hated that. Alone, but together, they approached the crooked cross that marked where, in a year, the headstone would be erected and, for now, the grave looked shallow, hollow and ugly. The cross was inadequate, but anything more would be undeserved.

"I hate this day," Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft eyed him a moment, fixing the sleeves on his coat that needn't have been fixed. "It's just another day, Sherlock." He replied, eyeing the hole in the ground, the dark wood of the coffin visible – but only just – from the angle at which he stood. "One last fuck you?" he asked, more to himself than to Sherlock but the younger man replied anyway.

"I can't bring myself to care." he sniffed, the wind folding spirals of his hair across his forehead.

"A whole new family and a whole, different person," Mycroft's voice was almost wistful. "I'd like to say that this day is a sad one, but I am simply indifferent." He stepped closer to the open grave, kicking indelicately at the dirt with his foot until the orangey clay tumbled noisily against the coffin. "May you rot in Hell," he said, plainly. "Sherlock?" he looked up, expecting his brother to add his own addendum.

Hands stuffed into his coat pocket, Sherlock echoed Mycroft's movements in kicking a foot-load of the soggy clay into the open grave, listening to the satisfying clunk as it landed on the coffin lid. "Fuck you." He whispered, burying his face in his scarf.

Mycroft's arm, hesitantly to begin with, moved slowly and hovered behind his brother before finding courage from somewhere to touch against Sherlock's shoulders. He pulled him in closer, holding him against his side, their height almost matching. Brothers in arms, neither sure whether to be angry or sad, indifferent or overwrought. They stood, side by side, considering their thoughts, considering their feelings and found themselves wanting. Their final 'fuck you' to a man never there backfiring, leaving them emptier and more devoid of feeling than when the day had started.


End file.
